


She grins like the Cheshire cat but her eyes are black as the Queen of Hearts'

by WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Unhealthy Relationships, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway/pseuds/WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway
Summary: When Alice went down the rabbit hole she discovered an upsidedown world where nothing made sense, and the only way of surviving was to accept madness.Molly knows that Sherlock is no Alice.  Jim knows that Sherlock won't accept madness, not without incentive. It's their burden to show Sherlock that he's been in Wonderland all along and it's time to wake up.  It's time for the Cheshire cat to tell Alice the rules.But who will be the lucky one to do that, Molly? Or her husband, Jim?Or What if it didn't start with Jim Moriarty? What if it started with Mrs. Moriarty? What if little, meek Molly Hooper isn't who she says she is? What would have happened if Jim was Molly's husband? Well, then the story would have gone differently





	

**Author's Note:**

> *Grabs shampoo bottle because the Oscar is nowhere to be found* I want to dedicate this story to the best friend that one could ask for, MusicOfYourSoul, who has been extremely patient with me. Thank you my adroit landmermaid for repeating "bowl" over and over again.

“If not Moriarty, then who?” Mycroft asks almost rhetorically, but then his eyes widen very subtly. That's what makes him different from his brother, Mycroft doesn't ever stop looking. “You know it's not Moriarty. You know who they are… Oh, interesting. You won't tell me.” The older Holmes touches his ring and twists it in his fingers three times, almost unconsciously. John gives him the ghost of a smile, a warning.

 

“I don't know for sure, but what I do know is that she's as smart as him, if not more.”

 

“Dangerous you mean.”

 

“Isn't it the same with you people?” Mycroft gives him a fake smile, and just like Molly Hooper, it's more terrifying than a snare. The man in front of him can probably deduce his line of thinking, since his smile turns a bit more genuine. Or maybe he's just projecting, not that he cares at this point of the game.

 

“Now I’m in the same bag as Moriarty?” The doctor consciously projects his amusement into the older Holmes’ face this time.

 

“Sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference.”

 

“Not sometimes,” says the older Holmes with a knowing smile and if he were another man John would have said there was laughter in his eyes. “You think I… We. Sherlock and I. You think we don't know whether if there's even a line.”

 

John curved his mouth, but it was neither a smile nor a there was sadness in his expression. It was something else, something Mycroft doesn't even know if he could name. The doctor lowers his head acknowledging him, and then stands up and turns to go without saying anything else. The Iceman watches him leave, pitying his brother, who doesn't even see all there is to John Watson.

 

***

 

“You will have to know him inside out, every secret he thinks he has, everything he thinks he is, everything he actually is, you will have to know. Yet you will have to be invisible, how do you plan to do that, dear?” He asked in a angry tone of voice, and she suppressed the flinch, like she always did, having already been used to it. The terms of endearment turned sour and dangerous in his mouth. But this time, her smile was real when she looked at him.

 

“I’ll be eager to get his attention. I’ll desperately want to be the sole focus of his attention. He’ll find me annoying, so he will underestimate me. And then, when I burn his heart out of his breathing chest, when I’m the last thing he understands in his world, then, and only then, I'll strike the final blow.” He paused his pacing, and turned to look at her slowly, assessing her, like always. So she just arched an eyebrow and brought her cuppa to her lips, as she muttered, “it worked with you, didn't it?” And then it was his turn to suppress the flinch, in an almost imperceptible and familiar move. He looked at her with fear in his eyes and desire in his mouth, as he showed her with a bruising kiss. It was wet and tasted like copper. Like always. And like always it made her weak on the knees as she fisted a handful of his hair and pulled. They broke the kiss and looked at each other's eyes, seeing the perfect mirror for their souls. Their lips met again and that night little talking was made.

 

That was the last time Molly Hooper saw Jim Moriarty until a reunion that will take place ten years later.

 

***

 

When the, then just sergeant detective, gets into his flat he's ready to fall down into his hideous sofa and pass out for a week. But of course, someone who leads the kind of life that he leads doesn't get to do what he wants to, just what it needs to be done.

 

So he hangs his coat in the hanger besides the door, and pulls his hand into the pocket of the trench coat that hangs in there permanently. The first thing he did when he rented the place was to place that coat there, with an untraceable gun in the left pocket. He gets it out and rapidly aims it to the person sitting in the dark by the window on the other side of his flat.

 

“Greg Lestrade. GL. Close enough to your real name.”

 

“What makes you think you ever knew my real name.” Molly smiles without moving from her spot. She doesn't make any sudden moves, and he hates her a bit for it. His finger is itching to pull the trigger.

 

“Touché.”

 

“What do you want M…”

 

“It's Molly now.” She cuts him off before he can utter her name. It's been a long time since she's heard her name and he isn't the person she wants to hear it from. He nods but the gun doesn't waver.

 

“What do you want.” And somehow he manages to make that a statement and not a question.

 

“We’ll be working together soon,” she raises a hand calmly before he can say anything else, “no, not like that, not like the _good old times_. I'll be working as a pathologist in St. Bart’s morgue, I'll keep quiet if you follow my lead.” He regards her for what feels like a lifetime, but finally he agrees, and lowers the gun just an inch.

 

“Is that all?” He knows she's smiling because he can make out the outline of her white teeth in the dark. She gets up and approaches him with feline steps.

 

“Yes. Just one last thing,” she says when she reaches the door, “you still owe me one. Don't you forget.” She waits until he nods, and only then she opens the door and gets out as quietly as she entered.

 

Lestrade sleeps that night with his gun under the pillow, wondering if he’ll owe his soul to the devil for the rest of his life.

 

That night also, the familiar nightmares come back. He tosses and turns until his limbs are tangled in the sheets. Distantly, in the back of his mind, he knows that he’s arching his back on the mattress, feeling his t-shirt plaster against his sweat-drenched back, which does nothing but suffocate him. From the very beginning they trained him to be quiet during nights like these, so when he wakes up, it’s with a silent scream lodged in his throat.

 

He kicks the sheets with more force than necessary, stumbling out his bed and barely making it on time to retch into the toilet. He can feel his hands still warm with blood, and the aftertaste of ashes and smoke at the back of his throat. He makes no move to get up when he feels his stomach is settled, though. He just sits there, on the cold, hard floor of his bathroom, leaning his back against the bathtub.

 

He inhales until his lungs are full and the. Releases the air slowly. Silently. _Three, six, nine._ Back in his bedroom he can hear his phone ringing. _Twelve, fifteen, eighteen._ But he can’t make himself move, he sets his sweaty hands flat on the tile floor, enjoying the cold. _Twenty one, twenty four, twenty seven._ The ringing stops, but he doesn’t feel relief. He’s numb now. _Thirty, thirty three, thirty six._ He forces himself to take a deep breath and wills his knees to stop wobbling. _Thirty nine, forty two, forty five._ He gets up and goes over the sink to splash cold water on his face and hands. When he looks down he almost wishes the sink would be dyed in red, so he the world could finally see just how tainted his hands are. _Forty eight, fifty one, fifty four._ When he looks back up he finally sees his face on the mirror of the bathroom cabinet. The light is flickering and it enlargers the shadows. Only the left side of his face is lit, stark naked without stubble yet; the other is shadowed, hidden to the world, left in darkness. _Fifty eight, sixty one, sixty four._ He pulls away of the sink without a second thought, just when his phone starts to ring again.

 

 _Sherlock Holmes,_ says the ID. _Sixty seven, seventy, seventy three._ He sighs and soldiers on.

 

“Lestrade, if you could just forget about your cheating wife once and for all, there has been a murder in Saville Row. Hurry, before Anderson gets here.” Without waiting for an answer Sherlock hangs up. _Eighty, eighty three, eighty six._ He goes through the motions, and gets dressed. He has work to do, after all. _Eighty nine, ninety two, ninety five._

 

***

 

Years later, Molly is just a timid young woman to whom no one pays attention. Kind and awkward enough to fit with her job description.

 

She’s holding a cup of dirty water that some people here tend to call tea, when she stops dead in her tracks. She has walked this corridor on a daily basis for years, but today, something makes her pause. There's a crack on the window. It's just a small crack at the bottom, no one would notice it at first sight, but she does. She gets close to it, close enough that her breath makes the glass fog. She caresses the crack with her fingers slowly, almost lovingly.

 

It takes her three seconds to feel the pain. She has cut her finger. She doesn't flinch, she doesn't allow herself to react. She used to be good at this, at pretending she doesn't feel pain. Looking at the bloodied glass with a smile she thinks it's time to learn again.

 

She sighs and starts walking towards her lab. Since she started to work here she always imagined a bird would crash dramatically against a window, signaling her husband’s entrance to the board. Like a divine warning. Of course she knows fantasies like that don't belong in the real world, but she still likes to dream from time to time. Just an annoying habit from her childhood that she has never been able to shake off.

 

When she finally gets back to her lab, there's a new tab opened in her computer. A blog. Her blog, apparently. And it's only because she's alone with corpses to keep her company in the morgue that she lets a out a few chuckles.

 

 _You're hilarious, love._ She sends to an unknown number she has branded with fire in her memory.

 

_Did you like it? I even included our office romance._

 

 _Hilarious indeed. He won't buy it._ But then she realizes what angle he’s aiming for.

_Ah. But John will._

 

_Indeed dear, you're welcome. Happy anniversary._

 

_I'll see you soon. Promise._

 

_Counting on it._

 

***

 

The first thing she noted was his smell. Actually that is a lie, the first clue she gets is the sound of his footsteps, but she wants to pretend that it's his smell because she doesn't want to admit that she's forgotten it. She turns around and makes something no sane person will ever do, sneak up on him. He's too good to react with something that isn't a smile, but she sees the steel razor sharp in his eyes, and she feels heat, low in her belly.

 

“You're interfering with my plan, my love.” She says fisting her hand in his hair painfully, and he pushes her forcefully against the wall. At this hour it is highly unlikely that someone would see them, but she imagines that he’s about to ruin her plan. She moans breathily and gives him a chaste kiss on his cheek pushing him away from her, and he's distracted enough to let that happen. She resumes her walk towards the lab and says over her shoulder, “screw this up, and I’ll forget that I love you.” She feels him following her and her insides clench in anticipation and excitement.

 

She opens the door and rushes in and asks, “Any luck?”

 

And Sherlock answers, “oh yes,” drawing out the e, in excitement, an emotion that she shares. _This is going to be the beginning of your downfall_. She curves her shoulders inwards, and goes to Sherlock, just when he burst through the door. He startles her for good, and it's only because she is who she is that she manages to shout the name he goes by now. “Jim! Hi!”

 

She is genuinely surprised. She didn't let herself look at anywhere but his eyes out in the hallway, but she can't help but smile. He overdid it. He's stroking Sherlock’s ego.

 

He turns to go, forcing her to introduce him. “Oh, Jim, come in, come.” It was his turn to move piece, and he chose to move her. She hasn't hated him so much like she does in that moment.

 

“Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes.” She lowers her head, bashful. Submissive, not a threat. He approaches them with awkward steps, and a smile on his lips. She's giving him her back and it goes against all her instincts. She suppress a shiver and she sees him suppress a dark smile. A real smile. And now the moment she's been waiting, hurting Sherlock's heart, “and… Ah… Sorry.”

 

“John Watson Hey.” He says in one go with a flat tone of voice. She loves to remind John that he's invisible, in the shadow of the consultant detective. Back then he was just another soldier, now he's not even that.

 

“Hi.” Her love says in a breathy tone. “So you're Sherlock Holmes.” And she wants to laugh. She wants to laugh until she cries. He's circling them, assessing them from up close and they can't see. They never see. “Molly's told me all about you. You working in one of your cases?” She makes some idle comment, that she doesn't even remember once she says it.

 

“Gay.”

 

“Sorry, what?” She spats genuinely. How could this alleged genius fell for this blatant performance. How could he.

 

 _Jim_ noticing her anger drops the trail, distracting everybody from her. From the truth. He sends her a warning look when he's down collecting what he dropped.

 

“Nothing, Um, hey.” Answers Sherlock, and she knows he did it. Suddenly he's invisible. He's not a threat anymore. And it's because of her. She just helped him. She can feel herself blush slightly in anger, and isn't it ironic that the others just see embarrassment? That brings her to a stop. They don't see her. She's invisible as well.

 

He leaves something under the trail, and looks at her with his dead eyes and a naive smile on his chapped lips. She has never been as proud of him as in that moment. He was someone else entirely. She hates him, but she will end him quickly. She loves him after all.

 

“Well, I better be off.” When he comes to stand behind her his hand digs painfully into her back and she can't help the smile. “I’ll see you at The Fox, by six ish?”

 

“Yeah.” A clue for his next move. She smiles and accepts the challenge or an insincere apology, she doesn't care which one, only that it'll be fun.

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

“You too.” John answers and it's a compliment and a punishment. Sherlock has dismissed them entirely, and it was a compliment of the highest note. And it's a punishment for John, a reminder of what it feels like to be invisible, to be with someone who doesn't see you.

 

 _Jim_ goes and her anger comes back. Genuine burning anger. Sherlock doesn't appreciate their efforts, the finesse of their separate plans. Sherlock is a fraud and they will let the world know that.

 

He has even been given all the cards, they showed him the pieces on the board. And he still didn't see. If he'd had bother to look the number more closely he could have solved the puzzle early.

 

 _That number corresponds to a police report, one that should have been burned years ago. But it isn't in my nature to follow the instructions of my husband. Where would the fun in that be?_ She doesn't say. “What do you mean gay?” Is what she says, not bothering to actually listen to her conversation with the fraud. She helps her hateful husband to make his cover more believable and that more than anything makes her stomach churn with fury. She storms out, wishing to find him, but going in the opposite direction instead. _She has work to do._

  
_***_

 

It's not the first time her husband calls her in the wee hours of the morning, voice broken with pain, asking her to meet him. To save him. But it is the first time she contemplates not going.

She stills go because his piece has been unmoved in the same slot for far too long. That's why she married him after, she was curious.

She goes to her closet and grabs a black blouse that shows too much of her back and a pair of unpractical trousers that will dangerously restrain her movements.

She doesn't bother with makeup or with brushing her hair. She looks at the mirror one last time and she looks like her old self. _Wild_.

She gets in St. Barts like a ghost, without alerting anyone of her presence. There's a drop of blood in the button panel, she narrows her eyes and smears it with finger. When she gets to the corridor the floor is painted with a couple of droplets of red. She tightens her lips and just as she's about to turn the doorknob of the door, she feels her hand slip. She looks down and sees that her hand is dyed in red. She smiles to herself and grabs the handle more firmly and lets herself in.

Her husband is lying down on one of the steel tables with just a couple of desk lights on. Moran is by his side, with a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks for leaving me a blood trail to follow, Grettel,” she says to Moran, who turns to her startled with his gun raised. He looks at her for a moment, “go clean it while I patch Hansel up,” Moran looks at her for a moment, allowing her to see his surprise, then he looks down at her husband, who must make some kind of signal because Moran nods and brushes past her to get to the door.

“It's so bloody good to see ya,” Sebastian breathes into her ear. She turns her head and her smile becomes a tad more real. Without another word, he gets out of the room.

“You're getting sloppy, love.” He gives a cough that could have been a laugh.

“Just sentimental. We met like this, didn't we, dear?”

“Happy anniversary, my love.” She gets on the gurney and uses her own bodyweight to stop the blood flow coming out of his right shoulder. It's a through and through, it missed everything vital. A wound too careful to have been anything but premeditated.

“Don't you dare, dear.” He says in a raspy, yet strong voice. She looks into his eyes and goes down for a kiss. His lips are chapped and the kiss it’s too dry, but it still makes her heart increase its beating.

“He shot you. I should kill him.” He caresses her face with unusually delicate fingers. Before things can escalate, Sebastian Moran walks into her morgue again, without knowing just how lucky he's been.

“We’re even now.” He says to Moran, who smiles and scratches the back of his head, in a terribly mundane fashion.

“Even if I saved you ten times we wouldn't be even.” Molly uncurls her fingers, she stops digging her nails into his shoulder and reapplies the pressure into the gunshot wound, like a silent apology.

“I should get going, I have a few loose ends to take care of.” She feels him nod against the steely surface in which normally lie lifeless bodies. If it weren't for the red and for the pulsing wound there wouldn't be much difference anyway, she thinks distractedly. Moran is gone with a click of the door and they're alone. For the first time in weeks, they are alone.

“I would burn the world down for you.” He says fiercely, saying the words against her lips, breathing the same air. She licks the blood she drew when she reopened his split lip with their previous kiss.

“Would you do it if I'd ask you?” His smile caresses her lips, he presses his mouth forcefully against her in a searing kiss as an answer. She breaks what's left of his shirt and she rests her full weight against him, their bodies plastered. She feels every single part of his body burning her skin where they touch . They kiss again, and she's so tightly pressed against him that she can feel his heart beating violently against her chest. She brings one knee up between his legs, and he jerks his hips up getting the friction he desperately seeks. He frantically struggles to sit up to get more leverage, but she's not having it. She pushes his shoulders against the cold table again he hisses when it makes contact with his feverish skin, and he lets out a moan. He chases her mouth when she pulls apart and she smiles. She hopes off the table and goes for the sewing kit.

She closes shut his wounds in silence. They stay like that for a while but he doesn't stop staring at her. Once she's finished she undresses wordlessly and straddles him. She can feel his hardness through the rough denim of his jeans. She strokes him through the fabric and he clenches his jaw trying to keep his hips still. She can almost picture how much heat he's feeling in that moment, feverish and desperate to get control back, but hardening even more when he surrenders at her mercy.

Some time later when their breathing is under control again she turns to look at him in the narrow gurney, noting how they heated the steel, so it wasn't cold anymore.

“It's time, my dear. It's my turn to get into the game for good.” He says and she just stares at him for a long time, wanting to conserve this memory. Just for a little while.

“I won't have mercy on you, love.” She mutters into his cooling collar bone. He manhandles her on top of him, ignoring the noise that makes the stretcher in protest, and smiles at her, with wrinkles on his eyes.

“And I will not hesitate.” They kiss again, but this time is slower and sweeter. So unlike them, so fake. So she presses more firmly against his mouth and he puts a hand in the back of her neck. He rolls them over and and she grabs the side of the gurney to avoid falling. She smiles at him with his blood on her teeth. She has never been so beautiful.

By the time he leaves the morgue it's already morning. He leaves her sleeping on the table and covers her with a sheet normally used on corpses. She makes a macabre sight, so pale and still. He chuckles to himself and leaves St. Barts without looking back.

***

The day starts as it usually does in Baker Street, with Sherlock begging for a murder, goading criminals and basically daring the universe to complicate their lives even more. John turns around in his bed and looks at his alarm clock. It's 5:13 am. He swallows down his anger and gets dressed.

He doesn't bother avoiding the creaking steps, by now the whole block must be up. Once he’s downstairs he’s too well trained to feel fear, but he can admit to himself that he feels uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Sherlock's cries quieted a moment ago, which is never a good sign. The doctor turns the doorknob and enters the room squaring his shoulders.

Sherlock is standing next to his armchair, looking out of the window with his violin on his hands, but without playing. His long fingers are merely ghosting over the strings. It's something John has seen hundreds of times before, Sherlock in his mind palace playing his violin with a faraway look, but this time something is different. _The mirror_.

Sherlock’s profile is reflected on the mirror, but he’s so close to it that the skull that normally sits above the shelf in the fireplace, has replaced his head. The effect is too macabre to be anything but deliberate, and yet Sherlock seems oddly oblivious to it.

“Ah, John, where's the tea? I told you an hour ago to make it.” When the detective turns to look at him it seems like The Headlessless Horseman is looking at him through the looking glass.

“Why don't we head back to St. Barts? Molly should have the tests ready by now.” John knows that Molly, who keeps normal hours, most certainly won't have the results, but he can't stand to be another minute in that room.

Sherlock, who doesn't give a damn about social conventions like not waking people up in the wee hours of the morning, or not breaking into a lab at 6am, agrees enthusiastically.

 

When they finally get there, Sherlock barges his way in through the door, but John stays frozen on the doorway. Molly is indeed there. She looks stricken holding a scalpel awkwardly into her hand, like as if she did an abortive move with it. Sherlock brushes past her muttering something under his breath, but John stays where he is. “Oh, hi. I… We didn't expect you to…”

“To actually be in my workplace?” She says with an arched eyebrow and an edge in her voice. She sighs and adds in a softer voice, “I wouldn't be but there was an emergency.”

“That's not true.” Answers Sherlock not looking up from the microscope. “You did went home, but something happened. A lover’s quarrel most likely, judging from your clothes. Have you dumped him yet?” John sees how Molly’s face contort into something ugly for just a second before looking down, letting her hair obscure her features.

“Something like that. What are you doing here so early?” She asks with a carefully strained smile. John feels a cold drop of sweat sliding down his back, something feels off with Molly.

“You know how Sherlock is, he awoke the neighbors so I thought he could at least be useful in here.” Molly gives a polite laugh, and he looks at the detective from the corner of his eye, but here's not there anymore.

“Sherlock?” He calls, but no one answers. He goes out to the hallway but no one is there. John sighs and counts mentally to ten. When that doesn't work, he gets his phone out of his pocket and opts to do something that would undoubtedly piss the detective off. The tone rings three times before they pick up.

“Do you know where your brother could possibly be?” The doctor asks foregoing any pleasantries, something that he was sure all Holmeses appreciated.

“He will be here shortly, I assure you.” Says Mycroft behind him, lowering his phone and John follows suit.

“What are you doing here?” The older Holmes doesn't answer, instead he looks behind him and John turns around but he just sees Molly. She's looking at something in a Petri dish with more concentration than it’s actually required. He's about ask again when Mycroft finally speaks up.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” John arches an eyebrow at the non sequitur, experiencing a flashback more harmless than usual, about his first meeting with Sherlock.

“You already know, don't you have a file or…”

“Afghanistan or Iraq, _Miss Hooper_?” Molly and John look equally surprised, though Mycroft just gives them one of his fake smiles and waits. John is about to laugh it off, when Molly smiles a weird smile, and lowers her head. When she looks up she doesn't look like Molly at all.

   

“Iraq. Two tours.” John looks at her with a thousand of questions in his tongue and she feels her heart speed up a bit under the attention of the two men. Before anyone could say anything else though, Sherlock Holmes walks through the door.

“John, what are you doing still… Mycroft? For God’s sake what are you doing…?”

“I have a case for you. You are going to want to look at it.”

And just like that they forget about Molly again. She slips out through the other door without any of the men in the room noticing it. She smiles, after ten years of waiting, _the game was finally on._

_***_

Out in the hallway her phone vibrates in her lab pocket she answers without looking the ID. She's too busy looking at the cracked window. It hasn't been repaired yet.

“What are you wearing?” She smiles and lowers her gaze to the crack. It's still dyed red with her blood.

“A gun.” She answers mesmerized with the sight. It's still dark enough outside that she can't see the street below, just her reflection.

“Kinky, just my type.”

“What do you want?” She asks touching the broken glass one more time before pulling away abruptly. She goes to the other end of the hallway and shoulders open the door leading to the stairs.

“I missed your voice.” She rolls her eyes and reaches the garage. “Okay, I just wanted you to know that sharper-than-glass-cheekbones is in my pocket.”

“For now, anyway. If something goes south you'll be on your own.”

“Careful, my dear, your American is showing.” She stops shy of getting into her car, gripping her phone tightly.

“Do _not_ call me that ever again, miss Adler.” No one except her husband was allowed to call her that. “And don't fail him, you'll be of no use to me dead.” And with that she ends the connection and gets into the car.

_***_

When she gets home she instantly knows someone is in her shoebox size flat. Whoever is it, they're good, there's no sign of the breaking, but she is who she is, so she knows. She goes to her bedroom without even bothering to pull her gun out of her waistband.

“Just because you're an orphan, it doesn't mean you have to dress like Oliver Twist.” Says The Woman going over Molly Hooper’s wardrobe. “Although, I’m disappointed. I was expecting to see you with the gun. _Just the gun_.”

“That's why I haven't killed you yet, your sense of humor spices our relationship.” Molly doesn't look surprised, which unnerves Irene Adler greatly.

“Well, what can I do for you today?” Asks Irene in a seductive tone making a show of sitting in her bed, gripping the headboard above her pinning her arms above her head.

“It's you who broke into my house.” She answers looking for the one dress in her closet that Molly Hooper would never wear, but that would be almost plain on _her_.

“Word on the street is that you've been asking about me. I can't help but being flattered.” She starts to change feeling The Woman’s eyes on her the whole time, but she pays no mind to it, her gaze doesn't burn as much her husband’s. Hers is softer. She hates soft. She cracks up a smile that The Woman doesn't see, because she's sure no one has ever accused Irene Adler of being soft.

“I've heard you're working for my husband now,” she turns around and goes to her bed, where the woman is still lying sans her shoes and with her dress wrinkled in a seductive manner. She gives her back so The Woman can zip her dress up, “how do you feel about being a double agent.”

“Dealing under the table… I love it.” Answers The Woman and she walks around her to go to her jewelry box, picking a pearl necklace. She allows The Woman to put it on her, while she whispers in her ear, “when do we start?”

“You've already started, the last info you sold to my husband was fake.” The Woman drops the act and pulls away from her as if she'd have burnt her. “Don't worry, you're a smart woman, you’ll be okay.” And they both knew it was lie.

That's why Irene hated her more than her husband, she was considerate sometimes, her husband was a monster, but he was constant. She, on the other hand, could be sweet sometimes. Sweetness could be deadlier than violence.

***

As soon as the door closes behind The Woman, she dials a number. It rings and rings, and just when she's tempted to hang up and go there herself, they pick up.

“Lestrade.”

“You're going to do me a favor. Nothing complicated for now, tomorrow you're going to pay a visit to John Watson.” There's a long silence before Lestrade talks again. The background noises on his end stop abruptly.

“I thought I already payed off my debt. I've kept quiet all these years… Molly.”

“That was a simple quid pro quo, darling. But now that the game is on, all bets are off.”

***

“Hi Sherlock, how you do?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don't be stupid.”

“Oh, so he's at the ‘I think I’m so great at multitasking that you won't notice I’m not even paying attention to you’ stage.” Says Lestrade looking at Sherlock who is hunched over the microscope in the kitchen table.

“If you're here for a case I'm sure that'd get his attention.”

“Fortunately, no. It's not a case, I couldn't deal with him for another week without a breather.”

“Then... Is it a social visit?” The doctor asks trying to mask his bewilderment, something to which Lestrade laughs.

“No, John, but I see Sherlock's bedside manner is rubbing on you,” the DI says leaving the blond struggling for words, just like Sherlock, Lestrade thinks, mildly horrified, “I'm just here because Molly hasn't gone to work for a couple of days now, I've tried calling but she’s not answering, and since she's… You know…” _Madly in love with a prat who won't look at her twice, but keeps manipulating her for his own purposes,_ John’s mind supplies, “I thought that I would try here before barging into her house.”

“Oh well, she's not…” Then John suddenly remembers the weird conversation they had a couple of days ago, when Mycroft showed interest in another human being other than his brother. “A Holmes might know something, but not him. Excuse me, let me make a call.”

John doesn't wait for Lestrade’s answer, he just go out to the hallway with the phone in his hand. He thinks for a second in the DI’s comment about his bedside manner and smiles, deciding to text Mycroft instead of calling him, like he'd prefer.

_After your conversation with Molly Hooper she's not been seen again. Curious thing, right? JW_

The reply came not a minute later _._

_Landmark hotel restaurant, 2000 hours, reservations under Daniel Blackburn. Don't be late. MH_

John stares at the reply in his phone, and frowns at the non sequitur, wondering if this actually has anything to do with the young lab pathologist. He looks back inside Baker Street through the open door of the living room. Sherlock is still hunched over the microscope and Lestrade is breathing into his neck, in a way that he knows the consultant detective would hate. For a moment the blond thinks of Molly, if she were here… If she were here he doesn't know where she could fit in. After three years working with her, he doesn't know anything, not even where she lives. _Curious thing, indeed._

_***_

“May I have your name?”

“John Watson.” Says Sherlock at the same time the doctor says, “Daniel Blackburn.” The maitre looks startled but recovers quickly.

“Mister Watson I'm afraid we don’t have a reservation under your name, but Mister Blackburn, we have ready the table you requested. Come this way, please.” The maitre gives them a stilted smile as he guides them to theirs seats. As soon as he's gone Sherlock turns to John.

“What the hell was that? Why did you ask Mycroft to make reservations?” The doctor  looks mildly offended when he answers.

“I didn't! And why did you make them? And why the hell did you gave my name?”

“I thought you knew, Moran and Moriarty have a reservation as well. And your name is common whereas mine is too well known. Why did you think we were here for?”

“Molly. Molly Hooper.” The brunet looks at him confused and a bit angry for being confused, but suddenly Molly is out of their minds when they see the criminals in question get to their table.

***

“Sir.”

“Good evening, Moran. Please, have a seat.”

“Are we expecting someone?”

“Nope, but I hope she’ll come anyway. Now let's get down to business, shall we?”

***

“So your great master plan is to just sit all the way here. While Moran sells state secrets thirty feets over there. Sherlock, we can't even read his lips.” John says vehemently (and admittedly, exaggerating) looking at Sherlock in front of him, who looks like he's only giving him half of his attention, but then the consultant detective turns to look at him with a mildly confused expression.

“You know how to read lips?” One doesn't have to be Sherlock to see the clear discomfort that John is emanating in that moment. It's clear that he doesn't belong to a place like the one where they are, judging by the way he keeps tugging his tailored suit unconsciously.

“I don't, but I’m counting on you, Mr. Smartarse, to have that archived in your mind palace somewhere.” Moran was smiling at something his companion said, a genuine smile, they must know each other, though they do not appear to be friends. Lovers maybe, but not probable. “You should have told me that Mycroft’s file came with tailored suits attached. _Tailored_ , Sherlock. Where did he even got my measurements?” Sherlock tunes him out for a while, enough time for John to have almost finished his meal. When John’s voice reaches to him again there's urgency in it, “Sherlock!”

A woman passes past them, towards Moran’s table but John is insistent so he looks at him exasperated, “what, John? What…?”

“That was Molly. Molly Hooper. Innocent, lovesick, lab technician Molly Hooper.” Sherlock looks at the woman again, and that didn't compute. This woman moved with confidence, she was used to expensive things. She was dangerous. She had a cat. She was intelligent. She turns around and John was right. She is Molly Hooper.

Both of their phones ring at the same time, and when they pick up, John recognizes Anthea’s voice. “We are not having this conversation right now.”

“What conversation?”

“Exactly.”

Then there was a click in the line and they hear Moran laugh. John looks at Sherlock and suddenly remembers, “She's been in Iraq. Two tours.”

“How did you know that? Oh, stupid question, Mycroft, of course.” And he glances at their table, looking at Molly like he's never looked at her, with something akin respect and astonishment in his eyes. They go quiet again when they hear voices through their  phones.

***

She enters the restaurant, avoiding the agents positioned in the entrance, not a difficult feat since they're not on the watch for her. Not yet, anyway. She detours on her way to her table making sure that John Watson sees her. She's shed Molly Hooper on the lab that morning, she's Mrs Moriarty once again. She looks at Sherlock's companion for a moment, willing him to read her thoughts, knowing that it's impossible, and since Sherlock wasn't looking she was boringly safe. For the time being.

She grabs a chair from an empty table and puts it at their table, startling Moran slightly.

“You're late, my dear.” She looks coolly at him, and then to Moran again, to whom she smiles briefly.

“I’m aware of that, I was finishing my surprise for you.” Right in that moment his phone vibrates. He loses his smile and focus his dead eyes on her. She doesn't lower her gaze, as she says, “you really should get that, love.” He averts his eyes and does as she says. His expression turns sour and he stalks away from the table, almost knocking his chair over in the process.

“He will kill you.” She arches an eyebrow and boredly takes a sip of her husband’s red wine, and reassessing her he rephrases his words, “He will try to kill you.” She smiles calmly and looks at him for a few seconds, her eyes are even worse than Jim’s, in hers there's the illusion of warmth.

“Yes, but not quite yet.”

“When then?” He asks almost boredly twisting in his fingers distractedly one of the bugs of their table. _So they're listening. Good, saves me the trouble._

“When he discovers that he's not in love with me, but with the idea of _me_.”

“And what's the difference?

“I'm more dangerous.” Her smile is too wide and not wide enough, fake enough for it to seem real, since she doesn't really feel like smiling. Not to _him_. “But you already knew that, didn't you?” Moran takes a sip of his whiskey and thankfully he doesn't have to think up a reply, since her husband comes back in that instant.

“Cliste, mo daor. Mo sheal.” Molly nods once, acknowledging him, and with just a move of the head, they're following him out.

“Fifteen agents plus your pet. I’m gonna take that as a compliment.” The other two smile and Moran feels goose bump. “Sebastian, go get the car.”  There's no car, she's sure of it, but Moran still goes. “You look ravishing, dear.” And right then the fire alarm rings in a piercing frequency. They smile at each other one last time before disappearing into the crowd without a trace.

***

“What language was that? What did he say?” John asks Sherlock, who has an odd look in his face, one that he's never seen. But it's Mycroft who answers through their phones, which still have the line open.

“Irish. He said, _smart, my dear. My turn._ ” The words are anticlimactic in Mycroft’s voice, but they seem to shake Sherlock out of his head.

“Let me guess,” the doctor says as he rushes to keep up with Sherlock’s pace, “the game is on.”

“Yes, but what game are we playing?”

***

“Why didn't I see you coming, miss Hooper?”

“Because you weren't supposed to, Sherlock.” He turns his head slightly, looking at her from the corner of his eye. He divides his attention between searching in his mind palace for something that helps him to uncover Moriarty’s plan, Moran’s plan, Molly’s plan and Molly herself standing in front of him. There's a kind of vulnerability in her, in the way she hugs herself. She's soaked wet, dripping on the floor forming a small puddle. Her eyes are downcast and she's shivering minutely. But she captures his attention completely when he deduces the motive of her visit. “You observe so closely that you don’t see the big picture sometimes.” She confesses in a quiet voice and he deduces that he wasn't supposed to hear that.

“You're running from something. Someone is chasing you. You left your cat with your neighbor, a little girl, eight- No! Ten years old and… Oh. You're not coming back.” He stops talking when she laughs and it’s such an ugly sound that he only classifies it at laughter because the ends of her mouth are slightly up.

“I’m not running. It's not something I can get away from. I’m just stalling, sooner or later I will be found.” Her expression doesn't change in the slightest, and he can't help but wonder. He has been so blind.

“You want to be found. Why would…?” In that moment all his brain gets to work, he puts his mind palace upside down. His mind is in such a frenzy that he can only compare it to the first time he took a fix. “Oh… You sent Moriarty.” She smiles, and lights and shadows play tricks on her face, giving an illusion of expression in her blank face. He has been so arrogant. It was there, in front of his eyes. The puzzle that he never saw coming.

“No, not at all. You're just a game. Our game. But he was too impatient, so he decided to intervene.” He brings his hand into his pocket, and his finger hovers over the bottom in his phone that'd make his flat be swarmed by Mycroft’s agents in less than five minutes. And judging by the laughter in her eyes she knows. She doesn't move. She's right where she wants to be, so he decides against it.

“You said I wasn't supposed to see you, but I haven't, have I, Miss Hooper?” She seems to become smaller again and lowers her eyes for a second, before smiling faintly. When they come back the amusement is gone.

“No, Sherlock. You have not. But I'm just… Tired. I'm going to end this.” Her smile loses a bit of its stiffness, and turns a bit more genuine.

“Why are you here?” He looks at her again with his unnerving fair eyes, but she's used to unnerving glares assessing her constantly. It'd be almost anticlimactic not having them. “Oh, you came here for Mycroft.”

“Thanks for calling him, John.” She says raising her voice and the doctor peers through the door, with a wary expression. Sherlock frowns and fits his hands just as he hears the front door burst open downstairs. “Here's a reward for your kindness. Back off. You've been given all the pieces but if you haven't seen the board until now, then you will lose I’m afraid, Mr Holmes.” He gets angry. Why wouldn't he solve this puzzle. A puzzle that just got infinitely more dangerous. Infinitely more interesting.

A second later fifteen agents swarm into the living room, they reduce her and put handcuffs around her wrists. The whole thing takes seconds and they were already hushing her out of the door, just as she turns. The agents were about to immobilize her but Sherlock makes a gesture for them to stop, and they comply. _Interesting, Mycroft, how much power have you given me?_

“Just one last thing Sherlock. I spent years by _Jim’s_ side, and I'm still alive. Do you know what that means?” They usher her out and Sherlock see them get away in a black and sleek car.

“That you're smarter than him.” He says to window with a frown, he's not sure they've been playing the same game. He senses John behind him, oozing cold fury, almost rivaling his own. Almost.

“You were about to let her walk free, Sherlock!”

“And you just gave her what she wanted all along, John. An audience with my brother.”

***

 

When she recovers consciousness she's strapped to a table in a cold, bare warehouse. She still has her clothes on but her belongings are gone. Molly Hooper would care. She doesn't, she didn't carry anything of value.

 

She hears a door closing behind her, and she has to admit that the staging was spotless. He comes around the table and puts a steamy cup in front of her. _Chamomile_ _tea_ , very telling.

 

“I’m a very dangerous woman to anger, Mr. Holmes.” She says moving her wrist slightly, probing the cuffs around her wrists, which are chained to the table.

 

“I am aware of that, Miss Hooper. Is that your real name?” _Interesting,_ she thinks. They didn't know who she was, only who she wasn't.

 

“It's a real name.” The Iceman smiles, and she likes him for it. He has a sense of humor, almost as twisted and dark as her. Almost.

 

“My brother will be heartbroken.” He looks at her evenly, with his hands interlaced under his chin. Shoulders high and looming slightly over her. “He'd have loved to see this version of you.” It's meant to be an insult but she smiles brightly at him. He knows it's a warning and not an expression of joy.

 

“ _Love,_ ” she repeats with laughter in her voice, “you don't believe in love.” His expression turns bored but she see through his armor.

 

“What does it matter what I believe or not?”

 

“Because you made Sherlock what he is now, Mr. Holmes.” The Iceman just turns the ends of his mouth up, in what in other person’s face would have been a smile. He uncrosses his hands and puts them down in the table, where she can see them. His shoulders hunch a little and he stops looming subtly.

 

“Moriarty will come after you once he takes care of Sherlock.” _Interesting choice of words._ Will _and not_ if. She doesn't say, instead she answers.

 

“Sorry, maybe it's because you kidnapped me or because you brought me my favorite tea, but I'm not sure if you're threatening me or asking for my help.” She widens her eyes into a faux innocent look, and Mycroft drops his little, petty, manipulative game.

 

“That is for you to decide, Miss. Whose side are you on?” She smiles for real this time but he's not looking at her anymore. He's looking at his phone. She looks at her watch, slightly scratched because of the cuffs… _Jim_ has to have made his move by now.

 

She stands up and drops the handcuffs on the table with a clack that makes him look up surprised. She rubs her wrists and and rounds the table towards the exit. “I'm on my side, Mr. Holmes.” She shouts over her shoulder as she gets out of there. When she's half a mile away a sleek black car stop a few feets ahead. She gets in, with a smile. “Hello, my love..” He smiles at her and starts the car again, speeding away from the abandoned factory.

 

“Missed me, dear?”

 

***

 

“While I appreciate it, sentimentalism won't get you anywhere, Molly.” Despite how cold his words may seem to be, he's being kind, in his own way. Warning her that kindness is something useless with people like him, but that's a lesson that she's already learnt. A lesson that she has taught to many others before, too.

 

“Sherlock. Look again, and tell me what you really are to me right now.” John looks between them with a pained expression in his face, waiting tense for the brunet’s response – no doubting that it will be something incredible rude – to the lovesick girl that has saved them from Moriarty’s pyromaniac plans. _She saved the whole block, actually,_ John realizes as he sees the quantity of explosives littering the floor of the warehouse. In that moment he feels guilty for ever doubting the sweet girl.

 

“Sherlock.” He says in warning, but he's still distracted by the diffused bomb. _How could Molly know where it was…?_ The doctor is pulled out of his thoughts by Sherlock’s exhale of wonder. A sound that he usually reserves for psychopathic serial killers hiding in plain sight, not for people like Molly or him.

 

Sherlock’s gaze sharpens, looking at her. Seeing her. But something has inevitably shifted between them. She's suddenly invisible, like she never was in all the years he's known her. He can't deduce anything about her. Nothing that it's not incredibly mundane and humane. Nothing of value. “Leverage. That's what I am.”

 

She laughs and it’s such an ugly sound. So quiet, and cynical. So patronizingly cruel. John fists his hands and suppress a shiver. Sherlock, on the other hand, has never heard something so truthful coming out of her mouth, apparently.

 

“No, you are not, Sherlock. John is. He's _your_ heart. Your _breathing_ heart.” She hasn't moved since they got there. She's still across the room, but suddenly John feels her unbearably close to him, suffocating him. But he's a soldier, so he pushes that at the back of his mind.

 

“Why are you doing this, Molly?” He doesn't even know if that's her real name. He doesn't really want to know if it isn't.

 

“Sherlock?” She says, giving him the chance to deduce her game. She's being merciful in her own way, John realizes. And suddenly he's fed up with all the mind games.

“No!” He bursts angrily, “I want to hear it from _your_ mouth.” She looks at him, straight in the eye for the first time since she got there.

 

“Because I'll get my life back if I do it.” Her features doesn't change, but he projects his fear into her face. He knows that it's just his mind trying to protect itself.

 

“Oh.” He exhales, deflating a little, he's a doctor, that's what he does. Save people. “That's... We can help you Molly, Moriarty is…”

 

“ _She_ is Moriarty, John.” Suddenly the doctor wants to laugh. It's all so frighteningly laughable. Instead he starts sweating cold. His hand is as steady as it was before he went to Afghanistan, and his leg is itching to take action. It's just the rest of him that is paralyzed.

 

“I taught _Jim_ all he knows. He's my match.” She says nonchalantly, but even he sees through her.

 

“So you're going to _murder_ him.” Says John, and Sherlock looks at him with insulting surprise. Though Molly just smiles pleasantly, just for his benefit, as a reward. Her tender smile looks horrible in her, her cruel eyes just make it stand out, and the bright red lipstick just make her mouth seem a bigger than it is, more menacing.

 

“He took away from me what was mine.”

 

“The challenge.” Sherlock guesses, and Molly looks at him now. She lowers her head, conceding his point. They stay silent for a couple of seconds, enough for it to be awkward, before she buttons her coat up and turns her back on them.

 

“What was that you liked to say? Oh, yes. The game is on.” And she's gone. She doesn't wait for an answer.

 

“No, the game was on years ago. We are just now part of it.” The air of London never seemed as cold as it was in that moment.

 

***

 

“You spoiled my fun, dear.” Says Jim as soon as she answers the phone. She doesn't react and keeps walking through the crowd with her head down.

 

“You spoiled my plan, my love.” They stay in silence for a minute, listening each other breathe. “We've been apart for far too long.” He just makes a noncommittal noise and she rushes to get into the train. “Seems like you're getting sloppy without me. Did you really thought that a poisoned coffee was going to end me, my love?” She says in a hushed tone, and when he laughs she doesn't need the phone to hear it. She's right behind him and he doesn't even know it. She watches his wide shoulders, hidden under a large shirt, too big on him. Borrowed, then. There's still a couple of blood drops in his shoes. She smiles. She has missed him. The silence extends a few minutes.

“You deserved it. I was curious to see if after all these years you were still as smart.” He says and she just lowers the phone at the same time the train gets to the next stop. She stabs him with her sharp nails right in his liver, plastering her chest against his back and whispers into his ear.

 

“I'm twice as smart now that I don't have you to weigh me down, my love. Try that again and you'll make me angry.” She feels his shiver, not from fear. He's too good to show her his fear blatantly like that. She's out of the cart right as the door start to close. He looks at her as the train leaves, and she does the same from the platform. When it's gone, she goes to the nearest trash can and throws the burner phone there, with the line still open.

 

She can hear him yelling something, but she doesn't look back as she exits the station. She can almost taste at the back of her throat his surprise when Mycroft’s agents capture him and she lowers her head using her hair as a wall so no one can see real emotion on her face.

 

***

 

Molly rapps on the door with her fist five times before she hears movement on the other side. A blonde teenage girl opens the door.

 

“Yes? Can I help…” The girls says. And her short hair and lean form reminds her of herself in her youth so much that she almost turns arounds. Almost. Because then she sees the blonde’s barefoot feet and knows that’s a mistake she’d have never made in her house. Shoes could signify death or life, you don’t waste some precious seconds putting on shoes by toeing them off to be comfortable. A soldier sleeps with her boots on. Always.

 

“So you let your daughter open the door to dangerous criminals now, Moran?!” She yells into the house and the girl flinches. Exactly four seconds after that, Moran appears behind the girl. He puts a hand on her shoulder and she goes back inside.

 

“That’s why I prefer your husband, he’s more quiet than you.” Molly smiles and climbs the steps of his porch until they’re at the same height.

 

“That’s a lie. You prefer my husband because you’re more afraid of me.” Moran just smiles, but doesn’t contradict her.

 

“All these years you knew where I was.” It's not a question, but she nods anyway.

 

“I trained you after all.”

 

“But you sent your husband to me.”

 

“Yeah, you're welcome by the way.” Moran’s face shuts off emotions, just in the way she taught him and she can't help but smile with pride. “You’re gonna do me a favor, my dear Sebastian.”

 

“What makes you think I’d betray Moriarty?” He asks crossing his arms across his chest, and leaning against his door frame, and Molly smiles truly amused, enjoying his shiver and wary look.

 

“I am the true Moriarty, you know. I let my husband use my surname because I was anonymous, and he was not, at the time.”

 

“I know that. What makes you think I'd betray Moriarty? Any of you, to the other?”

 

“Oh, no. You wouldn’t be betraying him. Us. You would be playing both sides. My husband and I _love_ that.” Moran eyes her with mistrust and she does nothing to appease him. She just stares at him with her big eyes.

 

“What do I have to do?” She smiles, like as if he just passed at test and he gets angry, she used to do the same while training him. She brings her right hand out of her pocket and gives him a black pen drive. “What’s in this?”

 

“London’s subway blueprints and instructions on how to make a dirty bomb. Better than Ikea’s, I’ve been told.” She looks at him, still holding the pen drive out to him. He grabs it, touching her iced fingers.

 

“Be careful, Miss Hooper. This is a dangerous game, the one that you’re playing, and I’m afraid your husband has many friends.” She looks thrilled for a second, before taking a step towards him, getting in his space. Up close he can see her dark brown eyes. They are warm and big, open enough to have certain childishness to them, which make them all the more dangerous.

 

“Is that a threat, Mister Moran?”

 

“An explicit one, yes.” He says taking a step back, but uncrossing his arms.

 

“What will you do?” She asks, with enthusiasm, and he can’t help but grip the handle of the door tight.

 

“I'll start a war.”

 

“Oh, but Sebastian, a war is exactly what I want.” She says, looking at him with bright eyes and a serious mouth. “Send Katya my best, because if you don’t have those plans ready by the end of the month, I will drop by to make her a visit.” With that she turns around and he sees her back until the end of the block, where a black car awaits her.

 

“Who was she, dad?” His daughter asks when he enters in the kitchen. He pours to himself a glass of Scotch.

  
“Just a co-worker, Katya, don’t you worry.”

 

“She has a twisted sense of humor.” He doesn’t respond, just grips the pen drive tighter in his hands and pours himself another drink. Like always happens when dealing with a Moriarty, _he has no choice._

 

***

 

_Years ago in a cabin deep in the forest of an undisclosed location, Moran remembers being building a fire in the fireplace when the door stormed open. He quickly got his Glock out of the waistband of his pants, pointing at the intruder, but when he recognized who it was he lowered the gun immediately and went to her side._

 

_“How bad is it?” He asked her, putting her arm on his shoulders and taking her to the couch._

 

_“Just a flesh wound, don't worry.” Moriarty said with a smile that showed her bloody teeth. Her black thermal shirt was drenched in blood and her left arm was in an unnatural angle. He went to the small kitchen and retrieved the supply bag full of medical equipment._

 

_“Why do you do that? Is terrifying when you try to be funny.” He said, trying to keep her talking while he cut her shirt, revealing a puncture wound into her abdomen._

 

_“That's why I do it. Because it's not expected of me. Unpredictable things are scary.” She slurred, and added that to her American accent he barely could understand her. “Fear doesn't make you laugh, but if it does, then it's worse because you don't know what to expect.” He almost paused his ministrations to listen to her, but he didn’t. At the end of the night he saved her life, but it won't matter because she still owns him._

 

_It will be years later when he could start to repay his debt._

 

***

 

“How do I get in?”

 

“Killing.” The guard says with a poor imitation of a laugh, and she has to suppress a smile. She reclines her back against the chair and waits him out. After a few minutes in silence he adds in a quiet voice, “you’ll need more than a shiny knife.”

 

“I don't know, I'm pretty good with a knife. Would you like me to show you?” She asks with an over innocent tone, and the guard takes it for what it is, a threat.

 

“The only way of getting there is if they let you in. There's no other way, trust me, I used to _take care_ of the ones who tried.” She looks at him for a long time, until the guard starts squirming in his chair. She can hear The Woman’s heels clink on the floor, pacing in the other room and she sees in the guard’s face that he's heard it too. Now is when the fun time begins.

 

“Okay. I believe you.” And then she shoots him. Right into his heart. She watches impassively as he drops face first onto the table gasping for air.

 

“I told you I didn't want deaths.” Says Irene Adler with an edge in her deceivingly calm voice while _Molly_ disarms the gun.

 

“It was just a sedative. See? I can play nice.” She answers in a equally deceivingly sweet voice. “So. Miss Adler, are you going to be of any use to me?” She asks not even looking at The Woman, but she can feel her fear. She can always sense fear.

 

“I can cash some favors in. Will it be worth it?”

 

“It will be worth it to _me_ .” She goes to the other room and sits on the bed. She cleans her gun all the while feeling the woman's eyes bore into the back of her neck. “And of course, it will spare your life.” After a few seconds of hesitation she hears her heels disappear while The Woman speaks to someone on the phone. _Wait for me, love. It's my turn to move._

 

***

 

“ _I am going to win, my love_.” She whispers to him, giving her back to the camera. She gives him a genuine sad look. She caresses the inside of his elbow while she draws blood.

 

He couldn't look at her. He couldn't react. He'd lose the pulse against Mycroft otherwise. But she could sense his fury. “I will kill Sherlock Holmes.” He says to the camera in the right corner of the room. She smiles as she digs the needle deeper. “ _You won't, you know why? Because_ I _am invisible_.” She whispers in response.

 

He looks away from the surveillance camera to the two ways mirror, so it'd look like as if he was looking at whoever is behind it, instead of at her reflection. Then he says, “I _see_ you.” Her smile widens and his eyes come back to her as she mouths “ _That's why you're the only one I’m afraid of._ ” He looks at her for a couple of seconds and her insides clench at the intensity of his look. “That will be all.” She says in a tremulous tone, as she withdraws the needle carelessly out of his skin, drawing droplets of blood that slides through his arm to the floor.  

 

She drops the trail and the quirurgical instruments clank against the floor. He presses something into her hand just as a guard comes in, pointing his gun at him and snatching her by the arm behind the agent’s back. “We’ll take care of that, get out of here, doctor.” She complies and doesn't look back.

 

Once she's in her warehouse she opens the usb that her husband gave her. And she smiles. Maybe the game wasn't so predictable, maybe he'd win, after all.

 

***

 

 _You broke the rules, my love. It's my turn now._ She hits send and pockets her phone. She entertains herself counting how many assassins and mercenaries can she spot in the building that it's right in front of the 211B of Baker Street. When she gets to five she has to stop, having spotted her targets. She presses the klaxon twice, catching John’s attention a few feets in front of her. He puts an arm through Mrs Hudson waist and rushes her to her car.

 

As soon as they're in she speeds up, while the doctor struggles to close the door without falling out. Not an easy feet, it seems.

 

“Why are you helping us?” Asks John, chest still heaving, he wills himself to think that it's from the effort rather from for fear, but you can't never fool yourself completely, can you? He looks over Mrs Hudson, who is already looking at him in horror, so he gives her a thin smile. She pretends for his sake to calm herself down, relaxing her shoulders, and apparently the doctor needed to see that, because only then his heart allows him a respite.

 

“You were kind to me.” Answers Molly in a watery voice. “Carl was kind to me too.” She keeps driving, blending through the streets of London. Then he connects the dots.

 

“Carl? Carl Powers? Did you…” _Don't ask questions you already know the answer of,_ John hears Sherlock’s voice in his mind. Sherlock’s image actually helps him to calm down, he mimics his coldness and tries to detach himself. He tries to summon up the worst virtue of the genius, his cold logic. “Since when did you know Moriarty?” He asks in a flat tone of voice, and the girl in front of him just shakes her head, and he watches helplessly how drops slide off her face into the wheel.

 

“He was all I had. For years he was my only contact with the real world. I love him. He saved me from what I could have become. He was new and fresh, and I was just a kid.” If Sherlock would have been there, he would have realized that her speech was too mindful to not have been rehearsed. Sherlock would have known that even though it was Moriarty who came up with the plan, Molly is just an improved version of Moriarty. But Sherlock isn't there, so they keep going. “You know how teenagers are, the moment they're forbidden to do something, suddenly they love it. It becomes an obsession.” She gives them a humorless smile, “Even if they hated it at the beginning.” _Misdirection_ , Sherlock would have said, _bringing up memories of Harry in her rebellious adolescence, so she could shift his focus of attention. Empathy. Sentimentalism. Failure._

 

“Molly, we could…” John tries to say, but he's interrupted.

 

“You said _love_.” Sherlock is not there, but Mrs Hudson is. John watches Molly and her features lose the sorrow to become just a blank face. Tears are still spilling out of her eyes, but now is just like seeing water slide off her face. “You're on his side, but you helped us.” Mrs Hudson’s logic was so simple that John, used to Sherlock’s brain, wouldn't have explained it better.

 

“Things are getting too predictable. I’m cheating to spice things up.”

 

“I’ve played that game before, and it's a dangerous one, my dear.” Sometimes John forgets that Mrs Hudson is one of the only few people in this world to which Sherlock shows respect. That earns a long assessing look from the woman behind the wheel.

 

“I know, isn't it exciting?” Mrs Hudson gives a cold look and a smile, that is everything but happy.

 

“Bet he's afraid of you.” _Fear makes people do unbelievable things_ , John can't help but think. He doesn't know what transpired in the look that the two women shared over the rear mirror, but Mrs Hudson seems to have earned the respect of Molly, if the faint nod that she gives is anything to go by. Before he can ask, though, she stops abruptly the car, making them bounce into their seats, comically breaking a bit if the tension.

 

 _Diogenes club._ Even though he's only been there once, John would recognize it even in the dark. John knows the answer, but this time he ignores Sherlock.

 

“You didn't know Carl Powers.” It's not a question, since he's almost certain of this. Molly turns in her seat to look at them.

 

“No, I didn't. I met _Jim_ much later, he already was what he is now.” It feels like a reward for a test he didn't know they passed. A truth in a game of lies. They step out of the car and Molly waits in the curb until they get inside.

 

She gets her phone out and sees an unread text _Well played, my dear._ Her heart soars, and for once she doesn't stop to think if it's a good thing or not.

 

Once they get in she speeds up the car, and gets out of sight. If she'd have access to Moriarty's bugs, she'd have heard the tail end of their conversation.

 

“… Hell happened in there?”

 

“Sometimes you don't need a genius, just a woman who knows that love is not enough. This is not about you. Us. Is about them. And they're going down in flames.”

 

“They will drag us along, Mrs Hudson.”

 

“Mycroft! What the hell…?”

 

“Not here, John, the walls have ears. Follow me.”

 

***

 

When Sherlock wakes up, he's in a sofa. Unrestrained. The last thing he remembers is playing his violin at Baker Street. He remembers feeling his lips tingle and his tongue swell. Then everything went black. _The tea. Drugged._

 

Molly watches how the eyes of the consultant detective move, cataloging, deducing, planning… She brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a long drag, and breathes out the smoke out of the open window. She touches the snow, lukewarm against her iced hands.

 

“You saved me.”

 

“A regular man would think of me as his kidnapper.” When she looks back at him he's staring at her. She has what she pretended to want all along. His undivided attention.

 

“A regular kidnapper would have tied me.” She gives him a real smile and looks out of the window again.

 

“Why did I save you Sherlock?” She observes the deserted street for a long time. The pristine coat of snow that covers the floor, stark white, makes her eyes hurt. When she looks back at Sherlock the cigarette would be burning her hand if she could feel it.

 

“I don't know.” She smiles and finishes off the cigarette.

 

“Of course you don't, it's because of sentimental reasons.” And that makes Sherlock frown even harder as he sits up on the couch and puts his chin on his hands.

 

“You don't love me, you don't even like me, but you care about me. I don't understand.” She lights another cigarette, and after the first drag she passes it to Sherlock, who approaches to her with careful steps and takes it.

 

“John is your heart, so you'd do anything in this world to protect him.” Sherlock exhales slowly. She takes the cigarette back, while he tries to figure out the puzzle. When he does he frowns.

 

“You think I’m Moriarty’s heart?” She looks at him and passes the smoke as a consolation prize of sorts.

 

“He loves me, but you’ll be his heart until he wins this game.”

 

“So you couldn't let Mycroft carry out his plan.” He turned towards the window, elbow against elbow. She stole back her cigarette, enjoying it. “You didn't save me. You saved him. And he doesn't even know it.”

 

“What is that, that normal people say? Tough love.” Sherlock shrugs, having no idea this time.

 

“Now what?”

 

“Now I’m going to sleep, tomorrow the game will be still on.” With that Molly disappears into the hallway, into a room he guesses that'd have a bed. Sherlock finish the cigarette off, and tries to come up with a move. He's in check and he only has one move left. He smiles, he has no idea of what he's going to do. Yet.

***

 

Mycroft enters in the ensuite at Diogenes Club in which Martha Hudson is staying, with some files in his hands, and his umbrella on the crook of his elbow.

 

“Mrs. Hudson I’m here because…”

 

“I don’t care at all why you’re here.” Replies the old lady, without losing her focus of the teapot on the stove. He closes the files and squints at her.

 

“Oh, I see, you think I had something to do with Sherlock’s arrest, well, let me correct you…”

 

“I know you had something to do with that. I know you have surveillance on my house, I know you have a protection detail assigned to all the occupants of Baker Street, and I know someone is probably running another ground check on me as we speak.” Mrs. Hudson interrupts Mycroft again, but he doesn’t mind this time. He sits on the kitchen table while the woman busies herself preparing the tea.

 

“And they won’t find anything I assume?”

“They won’t. My husband was very thorough. He was not a good man, but he had protected his secrets.”

 

“Were you one?” Mycroft asks, and Mrs. Hudson smiles a fake smile that reaches her eyes. She wants to seem amused by that, but she just nods.

 

“That’s all I was in the end, I’m afraid.” Mycroft says nothing, just eyes her for a while until she breaks the silence, “I’m not like miss Hooper or like her husband, but I do understand from where is she coming from. I know what is to love someone who believes himself to be larger than life, and having to pretend you don’t know you will be their downfall.”

 

“So you decided to live a lie instead? Pretend you’re just a poor housekeeper?” Asks Mycroft, accepting the cuppa that she offers him. He watches warily how she sits tiredly in front of him, with her own steaming cup in her hands.

 

“Not a lie, this _is_ my life now. I decided to have a chance at normal life, to live unafraid of waking up another day.” She says reminiscing something that Mycroft can picture clearly into his mind. Something ugly that he’s seen millions of times in his line of duty. “Until you came back to Sherlock’s life.” She adds looking straight into his eyes.

 

“I saved him, his addiction…”

 

“He overdosed several times well before you decided to come back. The only reason why you returned to his life, was because he was accepted to work with Scotland Yard.” She adds a cube of sugar to her cup, “you knew something like this was going to happen. Sooner or later, you knew he was going to find someone to be his match, someone who could actually pose a threat _to you_.”

 

“I’m the British government, Mrs Hudson, I’m afraid _It_ comes before everything. But you should know that despite this, I care deeply about my brother.” Is all Mycroft can reply, and the woman leans back into her chair and snares at him.

 

“Love is not going to be enough to save him, Mycroft.”

 

“Neither was for you, Martha?” Asks The Iceman and Mrs Hudson laughs.

 

“What I had wasn’t love, I simply learned to be smart enough to be by my husband’s side.” He suddenly comprends why Sherlock is so protective of Mrs. Hudson, he saw what Mycroft didn’t. A lion with a lambskin. “Love came after, with a young man who thought I deserved to be more than just a dirty little secret. But my husband found out. As I said, love isn’t enough to save a life, Mycroft.”

 

“Then I suppose you understand the meaning of sacrifice, don’t you?”

 

“Get out of my room, you reptile.” The woman says in a quiet voice, and he nods, and goes away, leaving his umbrella behind.

 

***

 

“Why aren't you hiding?” Asks John sitting in front her. She doesn't look surprised to see him. He has just seated in her table, completely unexpectedly, _why would she be surprised?_ He thinks to himself exasperated.

 

“Why do you think? You must have a theory.” The waiter chooses to come in that moment with two plates. Mushrooms ravioli  for her and spaghetti carbonara for him. After filling their glasses of wine, the waiter finally goes away.

 

She was waiting for him, he realizes, and this time he doesn't follow Sherlock’s lead. John follows her lead and just smiles, picking the fork.

 

“Sherlock thinks it's because you're too arrogant for that.”

 

“I asked you what _you_ thought.” And they start to eat their meals. Like normal people. Like people having a casual conversation. It makes John’s skin crawl.

 

“I think… I think you're hiding, actually. I think you're afraid of something, and you're hiding in plain sight. The more exposed you are the safer you will be.” She stops eating to give him a close mouthed smile.

 

“Do you know why Sherlock keeps talking to me and to my husband?” She's asks, and she doesn't wait for his answer, “we’re the only ones who truly understand what is to live with a mind like his.”

 

“That's not true. What about Mycroft?”

 

“Oh, yes, The Iceman.” And she gives him another one of her unnerving smiles, “Did Mycroft send you here to interrogate me?” She examines him critically, he doesn't say anything. “Yes he did.” And the doctor can't stop the end of his lips from curving slightly. “Don't look so smug doctor, I’m perfectly aware you refused his request, but, allow me,” She says reaching his wrist, but without touching him. John suppresses a shiver, imagining that she'd consider it rude to kill him now, in the middle of their conversation.

 

He gives her more access to his wrist like she knew he'd do, he loves dancing with the danger, after all. She reaches with both hands and undoes the cuff link of his right. She examines it up close, hearing in her mind The Iceman sigh. “This is silver, too nice for someone like you. Ah, yes I’m aware you could afford a piece like this, but you'd never choose it. You lack the good taste.” She places the cuff link on the table, between the both of them and grabs the knife. Her pulse speeds up knowing that someone someone is holding their breaths, and someone must have charged their weapons. She smash the handle of the knife against the piece of jewelry and there is it. A bug. She lifts it to her mouth, showing it to the doctor whose jaw slacks faintly. “I'd just like to remind Mycroft that he's the one who imprisoned his only chance at beating me. _Us_ . You are the one who chose to believe _me_ over your own blood.” The doctors looks alarmed, and he notices distractedly how some of the agents Mycroft positioned around the restaurant move around uneasily.

 

“What did you do to Sherlock?” Ask John gripping the knife tight in his hand.

 

“Me? Nothing. Aren't you listening to me?” Molly answers, and she seems genuinely offended. And then she gives a small indignant huff, “how very rude of him, sending you in here with a dangerous criminal without telling you all the facts,” she then wipes her mouth politely in the napkin, and distantly John that her lipstick is still perfect, “Why don't you ask your brother-in-law what has he done?” And with that she stands up and walks away from the restaurant. She has what she wanted. _Chaos_.

 

***

 

Of all the places in which they could have hidden, Lestrade’s flat wouldn't have crossed John’s mind once. Though he supposes that's exactly why they are here.

 

“How did he figure my trap so fast?” Asks Sherlock to himself, not quite yet into his mind palace. As if sensing they were about to lose the brunet to his own mind for hours, Molly Hooper comes through the doorway of the living room and answers him.

 

“Because I told him.” John, ever the soldier, draws his gun from his waistband, aiming to her head, and Lestrade huffs a sigh that Sherlock catches with a curious glance.

 

“Yes, John, because I helped you to escape from _Jim_ and lured you into a safe place to help you to defeat my husband, just so I could kill you. Exactly.” Says Molly with an arched eyebrows and an unimpressed glare, too human for someone like her.

 

“To be fair it sounds like something you'd do.” Contributes Lestrade trying to defuse the tension. She allows one end of her mouth curl up in an imitation of a wry grin. She's always been fond of people who shared her pitch black humor.

 

“Fair point.” She concedes, crossing the room slowly, no making sudden movements, sitting down next to Lestrade at the dining table, “now that you’ve addressed the elephant of the room I need to cash that favor in.” He looks at her with a frown and nods.

 

“What do you need?”

 

“You _know_ each other?” Asks Sherlock with a tone of voice that John never had heard. He lowers the gun but still doesn't tuck it back into his waistband.

 

“It's classified.” Molly answers distracted, “I need you to go over this USB and set a trap for _Jim_. A fail safe.” He nods and looks immediately immersed into the information in the pen drive as Lestrade, and John’s head is still reeling from the sudden ease in which she fits in here.

 

“Oh, sorry so you are saying that you won't divulge confidential information from your country, the one, I may add you're trying to blow to pieces?!” Asks the doctor, because nothing makes sense anymore, he looks at Sherlock and apparently the consultant detective doesn't share his feelings, because he looks like all the pieces slotted in their place.

 

“I just really don't want to deal with his brother.” She says gesturing with her head to Sherlock and then she gets closer the screen, and to Lestrade, who doesn't even acknowledge the sudden break into his personal space.

 

“What makes you think it’s _their_ country, John?” Asks Sherlock annoyed, Lestrade looks up from the computer to watch them for a moment, allowing John to see that he truly had a spy’s poker face.

 

“Accents can be faked, mate.” Answers Lestrade in an impeccable Broad Australian English, Sherlock observes.

 

“Sherlock, you should head out, _Jim_ is going to make his move now.” Replies Molly in a General American accent, with a grin that makes Sherlock grit his teeth.

 

“What's going on? Why are you helping us?” Asks John, focusing on the mission and not in the turn his life gave.

 

“She's not. She's making her own move against Moriarty. We are the pieces, she's moving us.” Molly smiles one of her real smiles, the ones that made your stomach churn.

 

“Would you like to know to which square?”

 

***

 

Once they're alone John turns to the inspector, who is already looking at him.

 

“Did you work for the government?” Asks the doctor with his shoulders squared and his feet firmly planted on the floor.

 

“I worked for a government.” John says nothing and he looks at him, he doesn't see anything different. No cruel eyes and dark smiles, he doesn't see another Molly. “This is my life now. I’m just an old boring Scotland Yard detective inspector.”

 

“You must not be that boring if you’ve managed to hide from Mycroft Holmes all these years.”

“Boring is new, admittedly. I like boring.” John was soldier, he can appreciate the value of boring. He doesn't, but he understands it. He nods and his shoulders relax a fraction. “But do you honestly think Mycroft, the British government personified was not aware of my situation? That he didn't use it for his own benefit?”

 

“He used you for what? Babysitting Sherlock?” Lestrade nods and mutters.

“Something like that.”

 

“What about Molly?”

 

“I met her a couple of times before… Before.” John says nothing and Lestrade sighs. “Yes, I knew who she was, but she also knew who I was, I couldn't really have said anything. I didn't know she was going to pull off something like this.”

 

“But you knew she was dangerous.” The doctor states curtly.

 

“Smart people usually are, especially when they get bored.”

 

“How could you not tell me that? How could you let Sherlock go through all…?”

 

“John.” Lestrade interrupts angrily for the first time, “before I was introduced to Molly I managed to pull out her file, I called more favors than I could afford to just for it. It was twenty pages long and redacted. Every single line was redacted save her name and two words. Dangerous and lost. You don't get on the bad side of someone with a record like that.”

 

***

 

“Did you go to Lestrade because he's that good or because you wanted to piss me off?” Asks Sherlock walking besides her in the crow, trying not lose sight of her.

 

“Why don't you deduce that” She answers, zipping her leather jacket up.

 

“You wanted to distract me.”

 

“I wanted you to know that you don't really know your friends, no one is who they say they are.” She replies looking sharply at him, with fire in her gaze.

 

“Pissing me off… Historically is not a great move.”

 

“Oh, keep your hair on,” she says looking back at him with faked ease, “don't you forget, Sherlock, that I'm the bad guy here. The only reason why I'm helping you is because it's convenient for me.” Sherlock looks at her again, with his piercing blue eyes, warm, compared to her husband’s. Sherlock smiles secretly at something that he thinks he saw in her face but she dismisses it. She doesn't care right now. She has mission.

 

***

 

They in the rooftop of St. Barts. The cold wind here cuts into her cheeks, but the touch of his husband against her skin is like being branded by a hot iron.

 

“What if I lose control, my dear?” Asks her husband against her mouth. She tastes his words and like always they’re sour.

 

“Then we’ll actually stand a chance, love.” She answers and he actually laughs at that. He gives her a bruising kiss like some sort of reward for a test, and she bites his lip until she tastes blood. He feels him smile against her lips.

 

They only break apart when they hear a door closing. “He's here.” He whispers against her mouth and she can't resist to kiss him again, licking the blood out of his lips. Then she releases abruptly and he stumbles a step backwards, but she can't see his face because she's already turned in direction to the other door. She has work to do.

 

***

 

When she gets the call she is sitting on the warehouse where he has been living.

 

“ETA five minutes. It’s bad, Mary. Really bad.” Says Moran as soon as she answers the phone, and she doesn’t have it in her to threaten him for using her least fake name. She hangs up and waits. She goes over the half a dozen blackboards her husband had lying around, all of them filled with details of their little game. And the last one, the one in the far corner of the room, that’s the one who makes something inside her burn.

 

 _Miss Mary Morstan. Mrs. Moriarty. My little miss perfect. My wife. Mine._ It’s written in his messy scrawl in red marker. The board is not like the others, organized and neat. This is madness, hundred of strings connecting seemly random people, poems mixed with mathematical equations, all mixed together without apparent reason. _This is what love looks like,_ she thinks, with her heart beating violently against her chest.

 

The door suddenly storms open, and Molly raises her gun but Moran is not fazed in the slightest by this. He is supporting most of her husband’s weight, before putting him down on the cot that it’s on the only vantage point of the room.

 

She approaches him with trepidation for the first time. He’s gasping and clutching his stomach, and that’s something so human to do that she wants to scream for him to stop. But she doesn’t. She kneels by his side, instead, taking his blood-drench left hand in hers.

 

“Say my name, my dear, just…” He coughs blood and she can feel how it drips down her chest. She lifts his head making it a bit easier to breathe. A small mercy only indulged because of the circumstances.

 

“Adam. My Adam.” She whispers into his her as she kisses the side of his head.

 

“My little miss perfect. You were so good. Never missed… So perfect.” His eyes adopt a faraway look, and she strokes his hair tenderly. “I always thought it'd be you who would pull the trigger.”

 

“I _wanted_ to do it, my love. It was supposed to be me.” She kisses him and his lips taste the same as always, sour like copper, with a metallic aftertaste. Like blood, like death. “I will destroy them.” He laughs and it turns into a cough. His chest heaves for a few seconds and then it's over. He's gone. He's gone and it wasn't her. She lets out a scream that resounds through the bare walls.

 

“Mary, what do you want to do?” Asks Sebastian, who is still behind her. This was his only chance to escape. He stayed, so she supposes that counts for something.

 

“Burn everything down.”

 

“And _your_ board?” She looks at him because she cannot bear to look anywhere else.

 

“Do I have to repeat myself?” He nods and she gets grabs his… Adam’s phone from his pocket and gets up, wobbling because of her heels and not because of anything else. She gets out of the warehouse and into the car. She loses the notion of time for a while, but when she looks up from the wheel again it's daylight. Sunny and hot. And suddenly she can't stand London anymore.

 

Sebastian comes back in time and gets into the other seat and passes her her coat. She buttons it up to the top. Even though it should be too hot for it, she's cold. Too cold. But she's not tired, not yet. She has work to do, so she starts the ignition while she watches the building burn in the rear mirror. They drive away, leaving her husband’s corpse there, without looking back.

 

She makes the trip in a blur, Moran is silent the whole time, which is the smart thing to do, because not even she knows what will she do if he so much as disturbs the uncomfortable silence they’re in.

 

She gets out of her own head when she arrives to her destination. She's in front of a beautiful small house in the countryside. She crosses the small gravel path and knocks the door. After a couple of minutes it opens and an old woman greets her warily.

 

“Good morning, Mrs. Holmes.” She says with a sunny smile and knot in her stomach. _She was going to enjoy this._ “Your child has sent me to talk to you.” The lady eyes her with even more caution now that she has mentioned her kids, and she has to suppress the smile. _She’s a Holmes after all_.

“Which one of them, dear?” She clenches her jaw at the endearment. She will enjoy this.

“Your daughter, of course. She says that she misses you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Adam Worth was the criminal in which Sir Arthur Connan Doyle most likely based Moriarty on.


End file.
